Flipping for Yotsuba&!

Sharp-eyed manga fans no doubt recognized that yesterday's page from Yotsuba&!, volume 4, was flopped, or laterally reversed. As laid out by writer-artist Kiyohiko Azuma in Japan, the panels and the balloons proceed from right to left, top to bottom (though the English translations of the words read from left to right). The original scan looked like this.

Which brings up the question of why some English translations of Japanese comics, or manga, are laid out to be read from right to left, and others have their images manipulated before publication so they can be read left to right like other English books.

Digital imaging now makes that sort of conversion easy and inexpensive; it took me about eight minutes to manipulate the page above. Even before that technology, however, a book production department could flop the film that stored book pages before inserting the English translation. And I'd think that attracting lots of English-language readers would be easier with books that didn't demand retraining in how to read.

I looked on the web for answers to this publishing question. The 2007 Maryland Library Association Conference included a session called "Why Are These Books Printed Backwards? An Introduction to Anime and Manga for Library Staff." In a manner more typical of the Modern Language Association, the presentation doesn't seem to have ever answered the question its title raises.

Manga4Kids patiently explains to parents:

If you pick up a manga and glance through it, you will notice a few stylistic peculiarities. First of all, the book may appear to be printed backwards, with the front cover on what appears to be the back of the book. This is how Japanese books are printed, and many manga publishers prefer to keep the original format, rather than making mirror images of the pages for the English-speaking market. The panels in a manga page should be read right to left and top to bottom.

But that doesn't answer the question, either. It just confirms the phenomenon.

The Salt Lake City Library's manga FAQ (which I suspect Anna at TangognaT had something to do with) states:

This practice is known as "flipping" and is often criticized by the readers and artists citing that it goes against the original intentions of the creator.

So would translating the Japanese words into English, though.

Some websites mention exactly what manga artists might object to about flipping:

• Reversing images can make significant Japanese cultural details, such as how a kimono is tied, look wrong. (On the other hand, it would make automobiles look like those driven in America.)
  
• Sound effects drawn into the art could not be read, or would appear backwards to anyone who could read them. (Of course, many folks who can read them wouldn't need an English translation of the speech balloons.)
• Flopping any image can make flaws appear. Indeed, artists are often advised to look at their sketches in a mirror to catch such problems early.

But how often does an artist's perfectionism stop a publisher who sees a way to make more money? The fact that many manga publishers do flip indicates how little weight these arguments can hold. I think there must be a market-based explanation for this phenomenon.

My theory is that the first readers of manga in English translation were Americans with ties to Japan, already familiar with the characters and genres. Those readers would have been more bothered by mistaken cultural details and illegible sound effects than by the need to page from right to left.

Later, English readers began to enjoy those same manga because they told stories rarely found in left-to-right comics, and were thus worth the extra effort. For those secondary readers, learning to read from right to left then became a point of distinction and pride. Not being "flipped" became a sign of a book's authenticity, and thus an asset to the publishers. But that's just a guess.